Overview
- On Tuesday prosecutors in Duisburg filed an indictment at the Landgericht Duisburg accusing a 62‑year‑old teacher of submitting ten false medical certificates from March 2021 to March 2025 to keep receiving pay, with prosecutors estimating about €248,000 was obtained in that period.
- The indictment also charges the teacher with two counts of document forgery for allegedly self‑issuing two dive‑fitness certificates under the name of a doctor who does not exist.
- Allegations that the teacher had been absent from class since 2009 are widely reported but earlier years are time‑barred and therefore not part of the criminal case, and investigators say they found no concrete proof she worked in another job during the indictment period.
- The case exposed administrative failure: the Bezirksregierung Düsseldorf did not order an amtsärztliche (official medical) examination for years, prompting an amtsärztliche review, OVG court rulings that upheld the authority to order such exams, and a disciplinary probe of school‑authority staff.
- The Landgericht must decide whether to open a criminal trial while a separate disciplinary procedure and the woman’s legal challenge to retirement continue, the defendant has not commented, and if convicted the charges carry multi‑year prison terms although the presumption of innocence applies.